


Another Soul That’s Been Cut Up the Same

by Lexicon_V



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: F/M, Marriage, Rebelcaptain - Freeform, a wedding is just two people making a promise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-12 10:00:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29383140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lexicon_V/pseuds/Lexicon_V
Summary: To misquote Clark Griswold, “Little angst, lotta sap.” But if you can’t write sappy fic at Valentine’s Day, when can you?Jyn and Cassian, and how they marry. For the prompt “be true.”
Relationships: Cassian Andor & Jyn Erso, Cassian Andor/Jyn Erso
Comments: 15
Kudos: 44





	Another Soul That’s Been Cut Up the Same

They don’t get to wear their rings as often as they would like. Even when their cover identities are married, they take off the real rings and stash them carefully in a lockbox slotted into the false bottom of a storage locker on their ship. 

It makes practical sense, of course. Their covers are often Imperial social climbers desperate to impress, and they have to accessorize accordingly. The Swards would certainly have something shiny and studded with garish jewels- the kind of “precious” stones that come from desperately poor Outer Rim mining systems that the Empire ruthlessly exploits. While they force the citizens of those planets to live in grinding poverty and work under the most brutal conditions, they keep most of the jewels off the market, creating an artificial scarcity that serves to drive up prices and give the illusion of exclusivity and prosperity to those who can afford to buy them. No Imperial officer or his wife would symbolize their union without using an offensive number of those overvalued, glittering rocks.

The real wedding bands are made from a common alloy that’s more typically used for drill bits or droid parts than jewelry. Hard, dense, and heavy, they are unfussy and virtually indestructible, with a gunmetal gray finish that’s almost totally impervious to scratches. No stones or gems, no filigree or inlay. The rings are unadorned and inexpensive, but when duty demands they not be worn, Jyn and Cassian carefully hide them away using the kind of excessively complicated lock that Jyn herself  _ almost _ can’t pick. Of course, the rings themselves are easily replaced, but Jyn understands better than most the strength and comfort that can come from an otherwise unremarkable object once it is imbued with memories. With love. 

With home.

The official wedding ceremony, if one could even call it that, is similarly utilitarian. Just the two of them signing some papers in front of a personnel officer who serves as their legal witness and updates their files at the same time.

Later, alone in their quarters, they truly marry. No witnesses or costumes. No fanfare or spotlight. Instead, they cling to one another and search each other’s eyes like they did once before, when they were certain they would die. When they pleaded with the Force for just a little more time to live and know each other.

“I can’t promise a life that will be easy or long, but I promise that every moment I have left belongs to you,” Cassian whispers. “As long as I’m alive, I will find a way back to you.”

“When you welcomed me home, I was yours. You’ve had every beat of my heart since then, and every one to come until the last,” Jyn breathes.

They slide unassuming rings on each other’s fingers and then can’t take the intensity another second. They laugh as they kiss deeply and stumble to their bed. To keep any space between them feels unbearable. The pragmatic part of Cassian’s brain knows the only thing that has changed is their legal status in the Alliance’s data files. But when has pragmatism ever provided a suitable explanation for how he feels with Jyn?

As he moves above her, Cassian is awestruck at the unabashed joy in her eyes. He had been drawn to the fire in those eyes from the first, but this is pure light with none of the fear, anger, or desperation that usually haunt her expression.

Jyn basks in the unfamiliar feeling of easy delight. She traces the dimple in Cassian’s left cheek and marvels at never having seen it before. He had never smiled big enough until now. She wonders how many people still alive know that Cassian Andor has dimples.

Most of their lives they had been (still are) obscured by evasion or outright lies. Real names were abandoned early and often. Jyn spent a full third of her life living under aliases and even longer than that quietly (but ferociously) being no one at all. Just Saw’s feral brat. 

“The others will ask you what you’re called. You tell them to keep your name out of their mouths. I will teach you how to stop anyone from questioning you further,” he had told her on the flight from Lahmu, handing her her first knife. “Your name is a target on your back. Best forget it.”

Cassian’s deep cover assignments could span months. One of his earliest missions was to infiltrate the Royal Imperial Academy on Coruscant and live there for over a year. At night, alone, he struggled to remember words in his native tongue. He even started to dream in Basic. His accent was softened to the barest lilt, but his superiors (the real ones in the Alliance, and the ones commanding his alter ego at the Academy) had always hated that he could not erase it entirely. 

“Keep working at it, Andor,” Draven had told him. “The last thing you should be is memorable.”

“Try not to sound like you just crawled out of some Outer Rim hellhole, cadet. This is an Imperial Academy. Try to sound like you deserve to be here.”

How do you remember who you are when the truth is so remote it feels just as false? If no one else remembers your parents, if you can’t use the name they gave you, or the languages they spoke, does it even matter that they were here or that you were theirs? Are you just the culmination of all the people you pretend to be? Are you still yourself, just wearing a different name, or have you become someone else entirely who borrows your own likeness? How can you ever be sure that a “real” version of you exists?

But the weight of the bands, the solid feel of the rings on their fingers, remind them that they are real. Jyn Erso and Cassian Andor exist. And survive. And they belong to each other

No, they don’t get to wear the rings as often as they’d like, but it doesn’t matter. Whoever they pretend to be or wherever they are sent, whatever lies they tell to others, whether they are together or apart, the rings are not part of a disguise. They are a promise untainted by deception. And when they slide them on, they are restored to themselves and to one another. Even when everything around them is false, the rings will still be true.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. I’m almost as obsessed with “The Americans” as I am with Rogue One and I loved how Philip and Elizabeth’s real wedding rings were separate from their fake cover wedding rings. 
> 
> 2\. I have feelings about the diamond/jewelry industry and this ended being a bit of a love letter to my and my husband’s humble, non-precious metal, workhorse wedding bands. Even if we hadn’t been penniless 22-year-olds when we chose them, we wouldn’t have chosen differently. I’m weirdly sentimental about the symbol of our partnership being both humble and durable. 
> 
> 3\. End of unnecessary rambling.


End file.
